Here’s another State Farm commercial, because I can’t find a video of the Swiffer one I was thinking about and this one is annoying too.
(The scene opens on a busy city street. )
Offscreen voice of insurance agent: So, your policy looks good. Is there anything else?
Okay, I don’t know why these people are discussing their insurance policy while walking down the street, it seems like that would be distracting, but it’s no big deal. To each their own.
(The angle switches to a middle-class white couple. The man is doofy looking; the woman is wearing nice pants, a shirt, a jacket, and a short, practical haircut sometimes deemed a “mom” haircut. The woman is holding a phone.
Woman: Why did you buy my husband a falcon?
Man: (leaning in) Thanks for the falcon.
(We see a falcon on his arm.)
Roles are set. Here’s the standard Commercial Advertising Couple, the goofy dude and the practical, annoyed wife. She’s the bad guy who wants to ruin his fun; he’s the idiot who is unrealistic in his life choices.
(We cut to the agent, of African-American descent and sitting in his office.)
Agent: I didn’t buy anyone a falcon.
Man: Sure you did. You saved us a lot of money on auto insurance.
(Somewhere in there, we cut to the man and the woman again, and his falcon screeches and flaps its wings, causing the woman to recoil in distaste.)
Man: I used that money to buy a falcon. Ergo, you bought me a falcon.
La, la, la. Idiot man is idiotic. Who really needs a falcon? He’s not going falconing or hunting, he’s just toting it around the city. (I don’t know why it can’t just stay at home, but then we wouldn’t have physically seen it during the telephone conversation, because the telephone conversation had to take place on a sidewalk.)
(Another couple walks by, both of them African-American; the man has a parakeet on his arm.)
Other man: I should have got a falcon.
…do parakeets really cost as much as falcons?
(We cut to the agent.)
Agent: Most people who switch to State Farm save, on average, $480. What they do with it, well, that’s their business.
(The couple is passing a parade of other men with exorbitant items: a giant gumball machine, a stuffed moose head.)
Woman: Oh. That explains a lot, actually.
Man: (chuckles creepily)
(Requisite print information plays)
Because everyone who saves on State Farm is going to use their money on exorbitant luxury items that are hideously unnecessary and impractical. And every family who saves on State Farm will automatically have that money spent by the husband. No women are walking by with exorbitant items. (I personally would use my $480 toward a trip somewhere or possibly cosplay and books and DVDs and action figures. Or toward paying other bills. Or I would save it. But hey. At least no women are walking by with twenty bags of shoes or something gross like that.)
–your fangirl heroine.
